A few months ago I wrote a bit about the Hannan family, which came from Girvan on the west coast of Scotland.

About 40 years ago my mother’s cousin Willie Hannan took my mother and me to Girvan to see the family graves, and he told us that all the children of Thomas Hannan and Janet McCartney, my great great grandparents, had died young, except for my great grandfather William Hannan. And indeed round the tombstone were listed the names of their children.

But in the last few months a new third cousin, Janet Ewing from New Zealand, has made contact. She is descended from Jane Hannan, and as Jane Hannan was among the children shown on the tombstone, we thought it must be another one from a different family. But checks with birth and death certificates and census records have shown that there were in fact two Jane Hannans, daughters of Thomas and Janet. The first Jane, the firstborn, did indeed die young, but a younger daughter was also named Jane, and survived to marry Samuel Kay, and have several children, some of whom emigrated to New Zealand.

And now our “new” cousin Janet may be visiting Southern Africa later in the year, so there’s a possibility we might meet, and that will be something else to write about.